To the Editor:—I was highly interested in your historical editorial on the famous French surgeon Guilleume Dupuytren (JAMA189:509 [Aug 10] 1964). As you stated, he ignored Sir Astley Cooper's prior description of what came to be known as Dupuytren's contracture. An even earlier description, two centuries before Cooper's, exists of a traumatic condition of the hand similar to Dupuytren's contracture. It is by Felix Platter of Basel, Switzerland, and appeared in his book Observations, edited by Hans Huber and published by Ludwig König in 1614.